Global Forum Gobsmacked by Berlusconi

"This is my speech, prepared for me by my research department" Berlusconi began to the assembled great and good bathed in the curious blue light of the main  hall "but  that is just for the record", he confided, handing it to the chairman of the session.  "Let me tell all of you here what is democracy".

First he claimed to be the greatest of Russia's friends.  It was he who had turned the G7 into the G8 when inviting  Yeltsin to join them in Naples in 1994; he who had told  Putin and Obama thay would not be invited to Aquila unless they signed the agreement on  nuclear disarmament first and they had shown him the signed treaty on their arrival; he who had re-opened the dialogue between Russia and the United States after their relations cooled over the missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic and the invitations to Ukraine and Georgia to join Nato.  He claimed the warmest of personal as well as political relations with Putin and Medvedev, who he called "Un dono del Signore al vostro popolo".  By now sections of the audience where openly giggling or making remarks to their neighbours.

Democracy, we were told, requires three things: freedom from bureaucratic oppression, from fiscal oppression, and from oppression by the judiciary.  For instance, in Italy there are too many rules.  He, Berlusconi, is guided by the principle that we can do anything we like, and that ex post authorisations rather than prior permissions and regulatory conformity should be the only requirements for initiating an enterprise. Otherwise corruption is bred by bureaucratic oppression.

The state does too much: while up to a third of income, paid  in tax, can be regarded as payment for services provided by the state, such as defence and internal security, more than that is an unfair imposition; above 50 percent in tax is theft, indeed robbery.

Finally, oppression by the judiciary, especially  where magistrates have unlimited power and independence, as in Italy, leads to the effective suppression and dissolution of democratic parties by the incrimination of politicians and parties.  In Italy in 1993 the magistrates set out to take power, so he, by popular demand, decided to enter politics as owner of television stations and national newspapers, and of the most successful football team in the world.  The magistrates had tried to prevent his entry into politics by all kinds pretexts and prosecutions in which he has invariably established his innocence. The 1948 Constitution, (the Italian Constitution) seeking to avoid the resurgence of Fascism had set extraordinary limits to government and executive powers and handed the judiciary oppressive powers.  This must be undone to re-establish democracy.

By now the tittering and murmuring had stopped and the hall had succumbed to this remarkable take on the nature of democracy.  His oratory was masterly, it must be admitted. Berlusconi the democratic politician, martyred by judicial abuses, high taxes, and bureaucratic regulatory strangulation.

Without democracy (presumably as freed from regulatory and judicial tyranny, and those pesky taxes) there can be no freedom to develop individual talents and without that freedom there can be no economic growth.  But democracy can be improved. On we leapt into the development of democracy by the introduction of new technologies. We were swept through the digitalisation of public administration, the stabilising of prices in oil, copper, other metals, food - wheat, soya, rice, and the fight against the drugs trade. Strong sanctions should be placed on the personal consumption of drugs - it is the drug consumer who is responsible for generating drug production. All this was to be organised at the next G20 summit in Seoul he added, beaming at the South Korean prime minister, who looked nervously at his aides.

There must be concentration on raising life expectancy to 120 years and improving the quality of that extended life-span, as he was doing by funding research into stem cell technology.  His wish for the gathering was the spread of democracy everywhere, and a longer and healthy life of 120 years.

The audience put their hands together for Silvio and wondered what they had been here for, what they had achieved in all the hours of analysis and discussion, with all their massed expertise in technology, economics, political science, and history.

At least  he had brought them all to a moment of  reflection and self-awareness. Afterwards they were all quite cross.